Hindus Should Be Welcomed, Not Scorned

I returned from the peace of a vacation paradise to learn that our world had changed little during my absence.

After reading “Angry Baptists Decry Sale of Church to ‘Pagan’ Hindus,” (Aug. 5), I felt a combination of embarrassment and sorrow.

Embarrassment in knowing that many people confuse all Christians with those few whose view of God is so restricted that they cannot tolerate the beauty and value of other respected traditions, and sorrow that my Hindu neighbors must endure the scorn of the very religious leaders who should celebrate the Hindus’ dedicated ministries.

At a time when family disintegration, rampant violence and growing abuse are reminding us of our need for God, we need all the routes to the Almighty to be wide open--no matter what metaphors for God we might choose. Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Jews: We all are in the same business--making our people right with God.

ROGER BARKLEY

Northridge

The Rev. Barkley is senior pastor at the Congregational Church of Northridge .

* I am astounded, amazed and at a loss to comprehend the ill-tempered pronouncements given by pastors in Bell Gardens and Northridge when advised the structure has been sold. Sold “to a Hindu cult” cries Arthur Houk. Another, Jim Covington, ponders if “by selling this property to pagans will we make our God seem more impotent to his enemies and other onlookers?” The intensity of these buzz words would be laughable if the matter of freedom of religion, as granted by the U.S. Constitution, were not so ingrained within us. Hearing these lamentations from men of the cloth makes me wonder: Does it hurt to hate this much?

Within the Hindu concept is the edict of conformity to one’s deity, law and nature. What is so harmful in these standards and adhering to them?

One of the greatest moral leaders of this century was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who lived as he taught, with charity and goodwill. Gandhi was a Hindu nationalist leader, offering love and charity to all.

May I say to the Hindu congregations: Welcome.

JUNE D. ARTHUR

Sylmar